The present invention relates to an apparatus for dicing vegetables or chopping them up into different three dimensional shapes.
Automatic machines for dicing or chopping up vegetables into different three dimensional shapes have been known for a long time, and are provided with devices consisting of punched drums within which respective pressing rollers are mounted, said rollers being normally rubber coated and eccentrically motioned, and squeezing the vegetables placed inside said drums, in such a way as to get them to wiredraw towards the outside, through dies provided on the drums, the dies being provided with suitable pre-stamped contours, according to the three dimensional shape to be obtained.
Outside the drums scrapers are provided that collect the chopped vegetable sticks; rind, juice and pips are likely to end up being trapped inside the cylinder from which they are eventually removed.
A further machine is also known wherein sets of knives are used, the knives arranged in different directions and being crossed; each set of knives consisting of an array of knives placed next to one another at a constant predetermined pitch.
The vegetables are moved to said sets of knives that cut them into sticks first, and then into three dimensionally shaped chips.
A third automatic machine known in the art for that purpose consists of a belt of punched templates that make up a sort of conveyor belt running on driving and transmission gearwheels.
Above said belt, at least one pressing roller and, downstream of it, a rotating brush, are provided.
A dispenser places the vegetables onto the upper run of said conveyor belt that advances constantly, and the pressing roller pushes the vegetables to wiredraw through the templates and to fall into a collection basin positioned underneath; at that stage the vegetables are already shaped as three dimensional chips whose contour matches that of the dies the templates are provided with.
The brush downstream of said pressing roller clears the templates from the debris that may have got stuck in it.
However, these machines known in the art have some drawbacks that make them employable just on selected types of vegetables.
In fact, the first two types of machines heretofore described can only be used for vegetables whose pulp is firm, such as potatoes, cucumbers, and the like, whereas they cannot be properly employed for cutting tomatoes, as these would be irreparably squashed and mushed.
A third machine known in the art, and this is conversely mainly employed with satisfactory results with tomatoes.
Nonetheless its lengthwise encumbrance accordingly requires that a remarkable space be taken for its positioning.
Moreover, it was observed that the rotation of the brush does not exert enough of a cleaning action onto the templates to clear them of all residual debris after wiredrawing; given the repetitiveness of the production cycle, this can give way to a growing clogging affecting most of the openings the templates are provided with. In order to reestablish proper operation, such a thing raises the need to shutdown the machine, disassemble the templates and clean them thoroughly, fix them back onto the machine, all these operations involving an inconveniently remarkable waste of time and soaring of maintenance costs.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the above mentioned drawbacks by providing an apparatus for dicing vegetables or chopping them up into various three dimensional shapes, that minimizes all structural encumbrances, that is provided with an effective cleaning device operating without requiring discontinuation of production cycles, and that can be universally employed for any type of vegetables.
This and other objects are attained by an apparatus for wiredrawing vegetables or cutting them into three dimensional shapes, comprising a base frame, a first container supported by said base frame for collecting residues, a drum mounted for rotation about an axis on the said base frame, cutting means arranged on the outer surface of die cells, a vegetable feeding means supported on said base frame and arranged above said drum to adjustably feed vegetables into said cutting means, pressing means located downstream of said feeding means with respect to the direction of rotation of said drum, and designed to wiredrawing said vegetables into said die cells, clearing means arranged downstream of said pressing means and designed to force out into said pressing drum any wiredrawn vegetables held in said die cells, and a second container supported by said frame underneath said drum and arranged to receive wiredrawn vegetables present in said drum.